Since he did only mention the character I would agree with you; it’s ok to complain about characters and have the opinion that they should be changed. The problem is that you get some complainers who never really bothered to learn to overcome a character, strategy, or mechanic whining really loud and that’s who the developers listen to, the irony being that the players who whined will stuck suck, but just for a different reason.
It’s hard to know if some is just a whiny scrub or has extensive knowledge of the game. No matter what there is a little bit of bias. There will always be a struggle to get the game changed they one wants it. But I think it’s important to make sure that our opinions come from exhaustive research and training, not some knee jerk reaction to something we couldn’t deal with at the time.
Are we fans of certain players? I wouldn’t say I am a fan of anyone, but I do enjoy it when someone brings a new tactic or combo to the table, or if someone exceeds the limits of what I thought a character could do. Viscant’s filthy Wesker/ Hagger mixups, Combofiend’s combos with Spencer, Justin’s Akuma–these are all things with which I came away extremely impressed from watching Devastation and the crosscounter series. We watch videos and we come to trust that certain players, west coast, east coast, japanese, or whatever, will do things with the game not previously imagined.
That doesn’t make us fans, but when someone tries to disregard what a good player achieves, it’s only natural to think it comes from a place where the naysayer doesn’t understand the game well enough to defend himself and instead of learning more, practicing more, he thinks the game should change so that he can play the way he wants and still win.
That’s why when I hear/read someone say “Viscant sucks for picking Phoenix”, it grates. All it really says is that person is free to Phoenix and probably free to a lot of other tactics. Whatever nerfs or changes in UMvC3 won’t help him, because someone smarter will still find a way to beat him, phoenix or not. And we don’t want messages and opinions like theirs to be representative of the community.
Gonna pull these 2 and play devil’s advocate here. In reality its not all that difficult to decipher between a scrub or someone who has extensive knowledge of the game. Scrubs don’t like/understand basic mechanics and say things like “Throwing is cheap!” “XXX character is cheap!” "Play with honor!’
But this makes me think that if a character/gameplay mechanic is being complained about by both SCRUBS and PROS alike, doesn’t that say something about the game? This is something the elitists seem to forget. Pros also said Phoenix was cheap and agree shes broken and X-factor is broken etc etc. Difference is that the scrubs will just keep crying while the pros will find ways to beat it and just keep playing. But that doesn’t change the fact that the pros still said those things are cheap. They try to find more broken shit to break that broken shit.
Forget about playing to win for a second and just think of it rationally. If the majority thinks its cheap, isn’t there some chance that it is indeed cheap or broken? Along those same lines, isn’t it this unified idea that something is broken (x-factor, Phoenix, Trollverine, Haggar/Tron assist for MVC3 ----- Yun, Yang, Fei long, Viper for AE) or unbalanced that cause Capcom to get off their asses and make changes?
That reminds me, Justin Wong called Phoenix cheap and this dude uses best friends, Yipes said that MvC3 needed a patch to balance Phoenix after Tokido Beat Jwong at CEO. Both great non-scrub players complaining about an OP character.
Say what you want about Jwong or Yipes but these guys are far from scrubs. Yet they are doing what some of the elitist on this thread call “being a scrub” which is complaining about a character.
I’ve had people ragequit on me or send hatemail for throwing, spamming seismos, and get this, doing otg combos, lol.
IMO, that is a scrub mentality, failing to learn the mechanics of the game you are playing and expecting your opponent should be as ignorant as you. Complaining about a character that is improperly balanced in comparison to the rest of the cast should not be, it’s more of just stating the obvious.
As I pointed out, even the best MvC3 players are guilty of being this threads defenition of a “scrub”.
Totally agree. I’m more in the camp that dislikes Phoenix (despite me using her for last resort matches) and not Viscant whom I think is a fantastic player. Some people need to get their definitions straight here before continuing on and bashing “scrubs” left and right.
(I’m not sure whether I should be more surprised that we’re on about this or that it took so long for the antagonism that completely misses the point to start. Probably neither.)
I’d be all for not using “scrubs” as a purely derogatory term anymore. I don’t know when it evolved into that–2009?–on SRK, but considering it used to be just more along the lines of “newer player to the game” since EVERYONE started out as a scrub, it seems more than a bit…elitist now. Then again, “assholes” and “trolls” sound both more aggressive and more generic, so meh.
Personally, I’m just going to refer to them as “stream monsters” from now even though that’s less concise.
For it to “end/close the thread”, it would have to actually be relevant to the issue at hand. I’m pretty sure everyone already agrees with that sentiment, at least with regards XF3 Dark Phoenix, which is precisely why that was never even brought up. The people hating on Viscant aren’t doing it because he’s ever, to my knowledge, boasted about being good just because he uses Phoenix well and wins with her (or that he’s even boasted at all about being good, really). They’re just hating on him because he uses Phoenix at all, which is entirely different, especially when it’s ignoring that he regularly wins with his other characters like Wesker.
If he was some boastful asshole who played a Amaterasu (y)/Morrigan (y)/(Dark) Phoenix (a) that was utterly incompetent with the first two characters and was entirely reliant on Jean turning Dark and having X-Factor 3 to win, I’m pretty sure (next to) no one would be defending him. But he’s not, so…yeah, not relevant.
Good to know you’re on board though.
I think “scrubs” tend not to understand something and dislike it rather just dislike even if they understand it, at least if we’re talking about the “appropriate” usage of scrub, but yes, I otherwise agree with this.
With that said, I will now play Devil’s Advocate to your Devil’s Advocate. So…does that make me…Agent Smith or something, Mr. Reeves?
This is true for the most part. However, I’d say there’s a rather obvious line between something merely being cheap and something being actually broken; just like there’s an even more obvious distinction between something being overpowered and being cheap and how there’s a rather constant, irrational want to use the misnomer of “broken” to describe anything remotely overpowered. So it doesn’t necessarily say that much about the game.
But go on.
Along the same lines of rationality, one must ask himself or herself: Even if something is cheap, then does it necessitate it being broken/literally breaking the game? If it isn’t broken, then is that cheap thing necessarily “bad” or even ultimately detrimental to the game as a whole?
That’s entirely arguable, even ignoring the more cynical arguments that Capcom has been giving us (or “forcing” upon us, to use more appropriately cynical phrasing) such rapid updates solely for the money it generates. Yes, things that people cry out about tend to get focused upon the most and, yes, it tends to be things that are perceived as “cheap” (whether correctly or incorrectly) that get more, if not most, of the attention.
However, that’s hardly the only reason that Capcom’s ever revised things. They may end up trying to “fix” or, rather “shake up” things, but that tends to be part of making the game more inline with whatever the overall vision for the game is, even if it makes little sense to us at the end. I mean, even with their arguable history of “over-nerfing” characters, there’s been plenty of (recent) instances where they’ve buffed characters who didn’t really need it and ended up creating something that people thought was “cheap” (or looks like it’s going to obviously be “cheap”). Whether or not this is what they were actually aiming for or accidental or something they’re aiming for but end(ed) up revisiting due to fan perception (that, once again, may or may not be correct) is unknown to me–and to you–and actually somewhat besides the point.
Anyway, when it comes to Capcom and things being “unbalanced”, their answer tends to be “that’s the way it’s supposed to be” (read: “deal with it”) more often than not. This rather than constantly revising every single thing that people cry out about (even in their big edits to Street Fighter IV) constantly, which seems to be what Midway/Netherrealms is aiming for with MK9–that’s not to snipe at them, even having little to no instance in MK9, but merely to say it’s something that I’ve noticed. Again, why this is exactly I’m not sure, but they don’t necessarily kowtow to cries of cheapness as easily as you seem to be implying, knee-jerk reactions to some things (i.e. MvC3 Sentinel) aside.
It could just be because they know creating actual perfect balance (since, technically anything less is by definition “unbalanced”) is both a Sisyphean attempt and, even if it were possible, something that might bankrupt them given how much fine-tuning and revisions it would likely take. And then some people would still bitch about something being overpowered or cheap or “broken”, so, really, what’s the point?
Basically, my point to this–beyond the obvious that cheap things aren’t necessarily bad–is we don’t know why Capcom ultimately does the changes they do in a great many instances and something merely being “unbalanced” is absolutely no cause for Capcom to “get off their asses” just something because displeases someone or even a great many someones.
Now, if it were a more question of, as you were basically implying anyway, whether something or someone was both “cheap” and detrimental to the game in question, as many people believe Phoenix to be (in her current MvC3 form), then that would be a lot more worthy of discussion. You’re still probably not going to get a clear cut answer there either, though; just a lot of needless yelling and bickering and such knowing human nature.
The feeling this thread is giving me is that the OP got his feelings hurt because steam monsters were frankly, being stream monsters. Trolls, clowns, hecklers, etc. Hide your screen chat or whatever if the chat offends you to the point of making a thread to defend a players reputation. The people in the chat are in the moment and just as hype as everybody else, whether or not what they’re saying if truthful, you should probably take it with a grain of salt.
**Calling a character cheap /=/ scrub. **People are entitled to their own opinion. Heck, arguably, this alone created most of the hypest moments in EVO (Viscant vs PR Rog anyone?).
Calling a player cheap /=/ scrub. Same reason as above.
Using “non-cheap” characters because of a honor code = scrub. Games and tournaments do not discriminate between Phoenix and Hsien-Ko. If you win, you win. If you lose, you lose.
**Deeming yourself as a better player against a winning player who used top tier characters = scrub. **Games and tournaments do not discriminate between “average Joe” and Viscant. If you win, you win. If you lose, you lose.
This has and will be the nature of any competitive environment – whether its video gaming, sports or otherwise. If you’re not breaking the rules, anything goes. And in tournaments and competitive play, the only thing that gets direct recognition is winning. It’s harsh, but truth.** This will apply 99.9% of the time.**
P.S.
What’s the 0.1% you ask? This happens when a character, without a shadow of a doubt, throws balance out the window that spending any amount of time other than the character in question is no longer competitively viable. Meaning, if Phoenix was the only way to win in MvC3, that’s the only time there should be talks about banning her. Current tournament results where Phoenix has free reign **does not suggest this to be the case. **This is a very blanket statement, and there are even exceptions to this exception, but this is arguably the base for any conversation towards banning.
I believe the last time I said this I was flamed but:
If Phoenix was so easy why arent more people playing and winning with her?
You have to make quite a few mistakes in the match before DP even comes out. So who cares if DP blows it up? Thats like saying Q with 3 taunts has too much stamina.
Haters just gonna hate thats the bottom line. Look at it this way: Viscant won EVO with Haggar. Noel Brown placed top 8. IMO if you didnt make top 8 you got no room to criticize him.
You are not really helping proving that there is no need for an argument here, since after you say yourself that “People are entitled to their own opinions” then proceed to giving YOUR opinion on what is scrub and what is not, which is exactly the reason why there’s still an argument in this thread.
Along with the fact that the term “scrub” has a negative connotation in the community in general.
The real question should be… why do people still care about stream monsters? Are there people that still care about them except for the people that find them fun? Why aren’t you popping out your stream out of the chat yet if you are bothered by them?
MvC3 hasnt even been out for a year so players didnt have alot of time to learn the game. Therefore Phoenix was OP. But new technology continues to be developed against Phoenix so it gradually gets harder to win with her in a competitive setting. Now Phoenix isnt as scary as she used to be.
My post is based on the definition that any scrub mentality is when someone in a competitive environment is not playing to win. **This is a definition, not an opinion, of scrub mentality simply because tournaments/competitive play does not recognize anything else BUT winning. **It’s a black-and-white definition of competitive gaming. That’s why I don’t get the need for an argument over the meaning of scrubs.
It’s kinda like how math theorems work (this is going to sound nerdy, but bear with me for a sec). If a+b = c, then c-a = b, c-a=b. Translating this, if scrub mentality is not playing to win, then this automatically means that any behavior that doesn’t contribute to winning is scrubby.
Of course, if you’re saying that not playing to win doesn’t equal scrubby mentality, then that shoots this whole thing out the window.
No, it’s “tiers” as well. What is a tier, except a character that is used a lot and/or has the best tools? Playstyles aside, it helps to play characters that everybody whores because it forces you to play above ‘gimmicks’. Some people try to use their obscure low tier as a crutch to win because it’s not likely many people have good matchup experience against them. That’s not something you can do with a character like Wolverine or Sentinel. I didn’t say Phoenix there because she’s rare even in high-level play, and part of the reason brainless “pew pew pew” worked for so long was because nobody really took her seriously until Tokido and Viscant actually won two concurrent majors with her.
Yeah, I don’t understand all the Viscant hate either. Suddenly people are talking like it’s the first time a guy used a top tier character at a tournament. At least a Phoenix player is bearing a considerable risk and sacrificing a great deal of resources by having her on the team. Compared to that, a guy using Worlverine/She Hulk/Dante/Mags with Haggar or Tron assist, what the fuck is he risking for all the bullshit he can do? Fucking nothing!
^not really. running a good point character with a good assist that isn’t that great on point can mean your assist can get snapped out, or your point can get x factor killed and you’re left with that less than wanted character. that risk is very similar to the risk of running phoenix, it’s just that phoenix offers more reward with 5 bars.
and viscant IS running wesker/haggar… the point of phoenix is to either a) make people waste meter and the opportunity to kill wesker to try to kill phoenix or b) kill wesker while making dark phoenix more likely to appear. the weakness of phoenix is still going to be that she is 1.25 assists as viscant said and that her low health makes her more susceptible to snap mixups when she doesn’t have the 5.
I’m not pointing just Mr Jay Viscant, I’m pointing every single Phoenix player. It’s like, saying you’re good at Gears of War 3 because you use the Sawed-Off shotgun (Sry for pointing that game but makes more sense to explain), that weapon kills almost 90% for sure in close combat against any weapon, and any scrub can use it easily and call himself a “pro-player”, go back to MvC3, Phoenix is your Sawed-Off.
Also you saw what happened to Jay in Devastation when he took out Phoenix of his team…
Jay’s argument for losing with the non Phoenix team was that it actually was a very strong team he could have won with but he needs to land the first hit and was unable to do that in the matches he played.
The main problem with Phoenix is due to an overall problem of the game of meter building way too fast off basic combos. That and of course her ridiculous power in XF3. Which are both getting toned in Ultimate.
(Damn it. I’m not going to make it before midnight. Hmmm…)
Weird. The alert system didn’t show me as being quoted. Oh, Alert system…
Which, again, is both obvious and has nothing to do with Viscant or the topic at hand. So you are literally saying something that everyone already knows.
If Viscant were being hated on because he was an annoying braggart like, say, Dark Prince was, then I highly doubt (as many) people would be defending him.
Actually, no, I haven’t. I didn’t watch Devastation–I can’t watch streams on this computer–and I haven’t seen any of the videos thusly, much less looked for any videos of Viscant. If you want to post them, then sure, I’ll take a look. Otherwise, I’ve only heard the bare minimum even though I know what you’re talking about (very, very vaguely).
